Alameda Elections '12

With all the votes tallied after 10 days of counting, Stewart Chen has earned a two-year term on Alameda’s City Council, earning a close third-place finish in the council contest.

Daysog and first-place finisher Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft will each serve four-year terms, while Chen, who came within 113 votes of Daysog's tally, will finish out Vice Mayor Rob Bonta’s term as Bonta heads to the state Assembly.

Bonta bested Peralta Community College District Trustee Abel Guillen by just under 1,500 votes to take the Assembly seat, which is being vacated by termed-out legislator Sandré Swanson.

Election Day may feel like a distant memory for weary voters and candidates who lived through a lengthy campaign season, but the closing of the polls heralded a fresh round of ballot counting for elections officials – votes that could determine the fate of some close races.

Voters turned in an estimated 100,000 vote by mail ballots at Alameda County polling places on Election Day and cast another 42,000 provisional ballots, information submitted to the California Secretary of State shows (though the actual counts show the numbers may be higher). In this election, those ballots made up nearly a quarter of the estimated 590,000 votes cast.

Alameda Vice Mayor Rob Bonta appears to be headed to the state Assembly, with Peralta Community College District trustee Abel Guillen conceding the race. With over 100,000 late absentee ballots counted since the polls closed on Election Day and more provisional ballots tallied Monday, the lead Bonta has held since vote tallying began stood at 70,745 votes, or 51.09 percent, to Guillen's 67,716 votes, or 48.91 percent.

Tony Daysog raised only a fraction of the money some of his opponents in the City Council race did. So he decided to invest some sweat equity into his campaign, knocking on doors all across the Island. The strategy appears to have paid off for the urban planner and former City Councilman, who will be returning to the dais after securing a second-place finish in Tuesday’s contest.

“I’m kind of surprised,” Daysog said of the results late Tuesday. “But I guess all the door knocking really paid off.”

Updated at 1:03 a.m. Wednesday, November 8 to reflect full precinct count

School board Trustee Trish Herrera Spencer led a pack of eight candidates to keep her seat despite robocalls that questioned her record.

With nearly all of the precincts counted, Spencer had taken 9,966 votes, or 21.34 percent of the ballots cast and counted. Barbara Kahn, an 83-year-old retired social worker who recently rekindled her activism on school issues, was in second place with 7,907 votes or 16.93 percent of the ballots cast.

Alameda Health Care District Board incumbents Mike McCormick and Jordan Battani beat challengers in a Tuesday night race that may determine the future of Alameda’s only hospital. The hospital lost approximately $1.9 million this fiscal year despite bringing in more than $6 million in annual revenue from a parcel tax approved by voters in 2002, and its financial sustainability is uncertain.

With all but provisional votes counted, McCormick earned 9,661 votes, over 35 percent of the total votes cast in the race. Battani came in second, with 6,634 votes, followed by Tracy Jensen, who received 5,827 votes and Leland Traiman who got 2,129.

Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft was leading a field of seven candidates for one of what will probably be three seats on Alameda’s City Council on Tuesday.

With 86.67 percent of precincts in plus a slew of early ballots, Ezzy Ashcraft was leading the council race with 7,669 votes, or 25.12 percent of the vote. Former City Councilman Tony Daysog appeared poised to join Ezzy Ashcraft on the council with 5,461 votes, or 17.89 percent of the total count.

Some local political candidates and their supporters offered fresh disclosures detailing late contributions and spending last week, while a handful of others offered a late accounting of the contributions they have received.

Candidates are required to detail contributions received between October 1 and October 20 and outside groups, expenditures in a report due October 25, though those who raise less than $1,000 are exempted from the requirement. Contributions and expenditures of $1,000 or more than occur after October 20 are to be reported within 24 hours until Election Day.

Alameda’s teacher and firefighter unions have opened their checkbooks for local candidates over the past several weeks, spending more than $30,000 on campaign literature and lawn signs for the candidates they support, newly filed campaign disclosures show.

The November ballot contains two state measures that would raise taxes to help pay public school costs, Proposition 30 and Proposition 38. Here’s an explanation of what each measure would do if passed.

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